VERNON -- From a hilltop overlooking the Great Gorge Golf Course, a young black vulture took flight to freedom Monday after recently being trapped nearly a week in the underground boiler room at Legends.

Against a backdrop of the snow-covered slopes of Mountain Creek, Giselle Smisko -- director of the Avian Wildlife Center in Wantage -- released the bird that she rescued last week and looked on as it gathered altitude and disappeared into a thicket of trees nearby.

Minutes later, Smisko and fellow volunteer Judith Steffener, of Vernon, watched again as the vulture spread its five-foot wingspan and joined several other black vultures perched atop the roof of the main building at Legends.

Recalling when she first got the call from a worker at Legends about 10 days ago, Smisko said she initially went there a week ago Sunday and set a specially built trap for large birds with food in it. At the time, her hope was that this would be enough to lure the vulture out from the maze of ductwork and piping near the 20-foot-high ceiling where it spent approximately six days.

After that didn't work, Smisko and another volunteer, Jason Vidal, returned there Wednesday and set up nets.

However, "the bird decided it had a different plan and instead flew down to the ground, and we ended up having to chase it back and forth around the boiler room," Smisko said.

"I'm sure it would have made an amusing video," she quipped.

Catching the bird, she said, was the tough part. The rest -- getting it in a box and back to her avian rehabilitation center in Wantage, where it spent five days recovering -- was easy.

"We gave him some nice hefty rats each day," Smisko said. "He definitely enjoyed the food and also was happy to get back free again."

The plight of the vulture received heightened publicity recently owing to the lack of hot water at Legends that culminated in the vulture being discovered in the boiler room by an employee who had gone to check on it.

But for Smisko, successful rescues like this are just another day at the office -- or in her case, out in the field and at her avian rehabilitation center that she and her husband, John Smisko, founded 28 years ago.

"This (winter) is supposed to be our slow season -- we average over 600 birds a year that we take in -- but the last week has been especially busy," Smisko said. "In the last week alone we rescued, in addition to this vulture, a Cooper's hawk that was stuck in a chicken coop; an owl that got stuck with porcupine quills; a red-tailed hawk that was hit by a car on Route 206; and a screech owl that was hit by a car."

The Avian Wildlife Center's mission is to rehabilitate all species of injured and orphaned wild birds with the goal of returning them healthy to the wild. The majority of birds taken in are eventually healthy enough to be released. But the center also houses more than 100 birds whose injuries were so severe that they would not be able to survive in the wild, and that now make their home at the center permanently.

Smisko said vultures like the one she released Monday are often misunderstood. "People don't realize how important they are to the ecosystem," she said. "If we didn't have vultures feeding on carrion, we would be overrun with rats. We might not appreciate them, but they are highly valued by nature."

Smisko said she and her husband were inspired to start their avian rescue center after meeting each other more than 30 years ago while volunteering at the Raptor Trust, a wild bird rehabilitation center in Morris County.

Though licensed by the state and federal governments to do the work it does, the Avian Wildlife Center -- which also conducts educational programs for all ages -- is a nonprofit entity funded entirely through private donations.

"We're always looking for people (to volunteer), but doing so also takes a lot of training, which is why we treasure the volunteers we have," Smisko said. "But more than anything, we're always looking for donations."

Those wishing to support the center's work can do so through PayPal, or by sending donations directly to the Avian Wildlife Center, 146 Neilson Road, Wantage.

Further information on the Avian Wildlife Center can be found by visiting www.avianwildlifecenter.org or sending an email to avianwildlife@aol.com.

For further details, or to report a wild bird in need of help, call the center directly at 973-702-1957.